The Adventures Of Donald Effingham-Mudde & Damien

Nineteen year old Damien is a mad-keen, cool-dude, ‘up for it’ angler, who won’t miss any opportunity to go fishing. He has an aged uncle, an angler of some renown and a staunch traditionalist, Donald Effingham-Mudde, who spent his earlier years in service to the Viceroy of India. His family jokingly refer to him as WIMDOC, which is an acronym for the phase he uses to start just about every conversation (“Well, in my day, of course….”).

The old boy has come to stay with Damien’s parents for an extended visit, giving the pair the opportunity to go fishing together. Donald’s fishing references are impeccable as, according to him, he taught the Taylor Brothers all they know. However, both participants view the opportunity from slightly differing perspectives. Damien really doesn’t want to be landed with babysitting some doddering old fart, whilst Donald sees this as a perfect opportunity to show this young pup how to do things properly. They are bound to get on famously – aren’t they?

If you haven’t already done so, please read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 first

Damien’s continuing rant was cut short by the sight of Donald sweeping back the Wallis and this time connecting with something that certainly wasn’t a passing lump of foliage. The old boy was having quite a tussle when there was a swirl in the water in front of him and up popped Damien’s rod butt, with Donald’s hook clearly latched onto the bail arm of the reel.

Damien was screaming at Donald to get it in closer as he dangled over the edge of the bank and as the old boy grunted and heaved Damien managed to grab the rod butt and pull the rest of the rod out of the water. This wasn’t easy as the unseen rod-pinching culprit was still very much attached. Damien managed to bring the fish into the bank, almost despite Donald’s not wanted, but freely given anyway, expert advice on what he was doing wrong. Scooped into the landing net by Donald, the pair of them were admiring a fine looking barbel of around 8lbs when the thorny question arose as to whose fish it was.

“Of course it’s mine you old tw*t, I did all the prebaiting, it was in my swim, and hooked on my tackle,” said a quite adamant Damien.

“Ah well laddie, if I wasn’t here, in this swim, and clayballing with my trusty gear, you would have lost both the fish and yer tackle, so technically, it should be mine,” replied Donald.

“Look you old git, If you weren’t here, I wouldn’t have missed the bite, so obviously that means I get to keep the fish, and my rod and reel,” Damien sneered.

“You won’t be keeping this set, young ‘un,” came a voice from behind them. The squabbling pair spun round to find Barry, the club bailiff standing on the bank, with Damien’s other rod and reel in his hand. Holding out his other hand he asked to see Damien’s club book. A puzzled Damien handed it over. Opening up the book, the bailiff proceeded to read aloud from a particular page.

“Club Rule No. 5 states, ‘No angler shall leave baited hooks in the water unattended, anyone doing so will have that tackle confiscated’. You haven’t been at your swim for the best part of ten minutes, so you’ll be doing without this gear now.”

“You’re having a laugh,” replied Damien, looking to Donald for support, but the old boy had his head down, busying himself with the landing net. Damien turned back towards the bailiff, who certainly didn’t look like he was joking.

“You can’t do that,” Damien whined, “I was only helping the old git to sort out all the tackle he’d tangled up trying to land my fish.” Donald looked up, appealingly, as he was slipping the barbel back into the water, but the bailiff was unmoved, and continued with his speech.

“And as well as confiscating your tackle, a breach of Rule No. 5 means your membership is revoked immediately, so you are technically now fishing without a permit. If I was you I’d pack up while I still had one set of tackle left.”

The bailiff slowly closed up Damien’s club book and tucked it into his pocket, slinging Damien’s rod over his shoulder he wandered off, whistling to himself and smoothing three of his last five strands of hair back on his head. Damien threw his remaining rod up the bank and went off back to his swim to pack up, muttering as he went. Ten minutes later he was back at Donald’s swim with his loaded carp barrow.

“Bloody hell, I know you’re supposed to slow down when you get older, but you haven’t even started to pack up yet, get a move on you senile old git. In case your advancing years meant you didn’t understand, having my ticket revoked means we have to got to leave,” moaned Damien, standing over the barrow handles with slumped shoulders.

Donald got up from his battered creel and prepared to lob out another clay ball. “No need for me to go laddie, this water is affiliated to the club I belong to. If you want to carry on, you can chase after that nice bailiff bloke and ask him to give you a guest ticket, it’ll be my treat, that’s the least I can do, all things considered.” He began patting his pockets in what appeared to be a vain search for his wallet “Ah, seems I’m a bit short of readies laddie, looks like you’ll have to pay, though.”

Damien stood for a while, open-mouthed and shaking his head.

“Oh right, so you couldn’t say nothing while he was stood here then? I’ve had enough of this. Tell you what, dear uncle, why don’t you stay here and see if you can’t catch another fish, or even two, to go with the one you think you caught earlier. I’ll go home and sit by the phone, and when you’re ready, give us a call and I’ll get mum to put your dinner on, then I’ll stick the ‘taxi’ sign on me car roof and rush over to pick you up.”

Having finished his ever so slightly sarcastic speech, Damien then grabbed the handles of the carp barrow, perhaps imagining his hands were round something else as his knuckles were glowing white.

“Would you laddie? That would be nice, there’s no point in both of us having a bad day, eh!” Donald either didn’t understand the thinly veiled meaning behind the comments, or chose to ignore them, and turned round to ask Damien if he was sure he didn’t want to stay, but Damien had already gone. Although he hadn’t got too far apparently, as the stream of expletives was still easily heard as his foot obviously re-acquainted himself with one of the tree roots on the way back.

Donald tut-tutted to himself, “youngsters today, no need for language like that,” he thought. He got up from his basket and started to rummage about inside for his Dark Shag tobacco, over his shoulder the tip of his Wallis Wizard was nodding away……..